The Communist Controversy in Washington

Blond Queens, Red Spiders, and Neurotic Old Maids: Gender and Espionage in the Early Cold War

“…In general, liberals painted Bentley's charges, as Earl Latham has said, as the 'imaginings of a neurotic spinster'. 24 They used her appearance as a tool to discredit her. If she had lied about being a 'svelte young blonde', they argued, perhaps she had imagined her life as a spy as well.…”

Who Lost China? Chiang Kai-shek Testifies

“…As Earl Latham wrote in 1966, " the only hard evidence about Communist activity in Washington from 1948 to 1954 -provided by recusant Communists -concerned espionage, not policy influence." 42 In Taiwan, however, the betrayal thesis is alive and well. In 1968, for example, Zhou Zhiming published a book purporting to demonstrate that " the basic factor [causing the loss of the mainland] was that the Institute of Pacific Relations sold out China."…”